Scammers target struggling grads and school leavers amid jobs slump
Young people applying for their first jobs are being confronted a double threat: a shrinking pool of entry level roles, as well as a surge in sophisticated job scams on social media.
With graduate job postings down by a third year on year, fraudsters are exploiting the desperation of university graduates and school leavers by impersonating job boards on Meta platforms like Instagram, Tiktok and Whatsapp to steal data and money.
Social media scam surge as job market tightens
JobsAware, a non profit providing free employment advice, has seen reports of scams on Tiktok and Instagram spike dramatically – from just 13 reports a year ago, to 120 in the 12 months to July 2025.
Keith Rosser, chairman of the company, explained: “Over the past three years we’ve seen this explosion in the use of TikTok, Whatsapp and other social media platforms to really scale this fraud”.
Unlike traditional job boards where seekers actively search, social media pushes scam content directly to vulnerable users, increasing the likelihood of deception.
Whatsapp scams have also soared, with 412 reports in 2024-2025 compared to 161 in the previous year.
The scammers use increasingly convincing AI-generated job averts and contracts, as well as IDs, making it harder for jobseekers to spot the fraud.
This rise in scams coincides with a challenging labour market. Graduate job postings fell 33 per cent in the year to June, per Indeed, while the ONS reported vacancies in the three months to May droppe to 781,000 – the lowest since the pandemic.
Rosser warned: “There’s almost a greater need or desperation for people to get work… The higher the need and urgency, the more susceptible they are to be scammed”.
Dame Chi Onwurah, chair of the parliamentary science, innovation and tech committee, also added: “It’s concerning to see reports that fraudsters are using social media to scam young people who are just looking for jobs… The UK’s current online safety regime is woefully insufficient to keep users safe online”.
Global crackdown on scam call centres
Beyond social media, scam call centres continue to pose a serious global threat.
British police are partnering with the FBI, US Secret Service, and National Crime Agency (NCA) in a coordinated effort to disrupt international fraud call centres, many operating through trafficked victims in Asia and Africa.
Home Secretary James Cleverly outlined these plans in The Telegraph, describing the industrial scale of scam calls impersonating Microsoft, banks, HMRC, and utilities -bombarding Britons with an estimated 21 million scam calls per month.
Interpol has issued a global Orange Notice warning member countries of this “serious and imminent threat.”
Criminal gangs reportedly use large-scale human trafficking to lure victims with fake job adverts and force them to work in scam call centres, subjected to debt bondage, exploitation, and even torture.
Cleverly emphasised the need for international cooperation, saying that “this is the kind of co-operation we need to defeat a truly evil crime… We need to share more data and intelligence internationally, raise global standards, and make tackling fraud an international priority.”
The UK is hosting the world’s first Global Fraud Summit this week, gathering ministers and officials from across the globe to strengthen joint efforts against fraud.
Over 200 representatives from banking, technology, telecommunications, and civil society groups will attend.
NCA director general Graeme Biggar also said: “Over 70 per cent of fraud has an international element… Fraudsters don’t rest – with criminal gangs operate in multiple countries, using more and more sophisticated techniques – and neither will we.”
Labour market pressures fuel vulnerability
The rise in scams and job market difficulties coincide with economic pressures stemming from chancellor Rachel Reeves’s £25bn National Insurance (NI) hike, which Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey says is hitting jobs and pay.
Bailey told the House of Lords that “firms are making adjustments on both sides of the labour market” and warned that higher employer NICs – which rose from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent with a lower earnings threshold – are causing a “softening of the labour market.”
The ONS vacancy data confirms this slowdown, with fewer entry-level opportunities exacerbating the desperation among young jobseekers, increasing their risk of falling prey to scams.
Bailey also highlighted challenges in economic data quality, noting a significant drop in survey participation rates, particularly among younger people, complicating efforts to accurately measure employment and inflation.
What this means for young job hunters
The combination of fewer legitimate job openings, aggressive scammers leveraging AI and social media, and a global network of fraudulent call centres means that vulnerable young people must remain vigilant.
Government and law enforcement agencies are ramping up efforts, but as Rosser of JobsAware warns, “The higher the need and urgency, the more susceptible people are to fraud.”
The government has launched campaigns like ‘Stop! Think Fraud‘ and established a National Fraud Squad, while also introducing new offences and penalties for companies failing to prevent fraud.
However, experts and politicians agree that more robust online safety regulation and international cooperation are vital to protect the next generation of workers from falling victim to this rising tide of fraud.